A major work health and safety Bill has passed in Queensland, with amendments aimed at facilitating a plan that could extend industrial manslaughter provisions to bystander deaths, and ensure multiple duty holders can be charged with manslaughter after a fatality.
Provisions for health and safety representatives and entry rights could be amended by a new Queensland WHS Bill, while a WHS blitz has found that every targeted business in one industry was breaching its health and safety obligations.
Australia has taken a big leap towards banning engineered stone products, with the country's WHS ministers agreeing to release a "powerful and compelling" Safe Work Australia report that recommends the ban, and warns there is no evidence that alternative measures can curb the alarming rate of silicosis in engineered stone workers.
PCBUs will soon be: required to proactively facilitate the election of health and safety representatives; banned from blocking WHS entry permit holders through technicalities or impractical induction requirements; and handed on-the-spot fines for failing to provide adequate toilets, under review recommendations accepted in Queensland.